RINCON — South Effingham head football coach Nathan Clark constantly urges his team to go the extra mile. His mantra even applies during a pandemic.

The Mustangs are slated to resume practicing Monday following an 11-day break after “fewer than five” players tested positive for COVID-19.

“We were not mandated by the Department of Public Health to shut down football operations but we decided to do due diligence,” said Tim Hood, assistant superintendent of the Effingham County School District. “We shut it down so that we could kind of regroup and have a chance to check other students to see if anyone else was having problems, and to clean the locker rooms and facilities. We wanted some reset time before starting the operations back up.”

The team had permission to resume practicing Friday.

“... Coach Clark decided to give it one extra (school) day and start back Monday,” Hood said. “That’s kind of where we are. We don’t have any information that we have any other sick players so the plan is to finish the disinfecting.

“The locker rooms will have sat there for multiple days without any traffic going through them.”

The Mustangs  are set to open the season at home Sept. 11 against Metter.